Overloaded, undermanned, meant to founder,

we

Euchred God Almighty's storm, bluffed the
Eternal Sea!

Seven men from all the world back to town again, Rollin' down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain:

Seven men from out of Hell. Ain't the owners gay, 'Cause we took the "Bolivar" safe across the Bay? Rudyard Kipling

SEA MOOD

I shut my eyes, and I can see
How once we all sat on the hold,
And sang the songs that memory
Had not permitted to grow old.

We sang in seven different tongues,

And each tongue had its separate tears, While some would sigh to clear their lungs, Breaking the harmony for our ears.

And when we'd stop, some Swede or Dane
Would swing into his own folk-song,

Then clear his throat, and tell again
Why he left home, and just how long.

Or, looking at the sea with eyes

That saw none of the swells and spray,
The scullery-kid who grew man-size
Amid us, told about the day

THE ANCHOR

He ran away from home to find

What greater things the earth contains Than cities filling throats with grind,

Slit through with narrow, crooked lanes.

Then as the hours grew late, we'd take
Our last look at the Milky Way
That sprawled across the sky, to break
The blue, to something one could pray, -

So great it seemed, and we would gaze
At length upon that holy sight,
Then go below in separate ways
To clinch the silence of the night.

Milton Raison

THE ANCHOR

By furious fire begotten,

From patient iron I rose;

Stern hammers were the midwives,
My birth-caresses, blows.

Of fire that dares and iron that bides
Thy fierce, grim soul had stuff and form
That flouts the touch and kiss of tides,
And sets its strength against the storm.

The work to me appointed:

In coral, mud or sand,

To strike, and grip my hardest-
And having gripped, to stand.

143

Unseen thou striv'st, save by dark bulks
That watch thee struggling in the ooze,
Or staring ports of crusted hulks,
Or orbless eye-pits of their crews.

The beds of many waters

Have felt my earnest grip,
That saves from death or straying
My pretty, foolish ship.

The desperate bark, with strife fordone,
Sea, earth and air her foemen, trusts
Thy grasp, fell-set where many a one
Of thy abandoned brethren rusts.

Tho' last they slip my cable

To save my ship-forlorn,
Forgot, to rust what matter?

I shall have striv'n and borne.

Lord God of Effort, grant me such
A grave as this. Be it my lot

Having done and borne, to sleep, nor much
To care how much men say, or what.

William Laird

"THE SEA IS A HARP"

There is no music that man has heard Like the voice of the minstrel Sea, Whose major and minor chords are fraught With infinite mystery —

OF MARINERS

There is no passion that man has sung,
Like the love of the deep-souled Sea,

Whose tide responds to the Moon's soft light
With marvelous melody—

There is no sorrow that man has known,
Like the grief of the wordless Main,
Whose Titan bosom forever throbs
With an untranslated pain —

For the Sea is a harp, and the winds of God
Play over his rhythmic breast,

And bear on the sweep of their mighty wings
The song of a vast unrest.

William Hamilton Hayne

145

OF MARINERS

Sea folk have speech that is not quite their own,
Twilight is in their talk and sound of water,
For every sea-wife, every sea-wife's daughter
Knows ships and spars and masts and the sea's

moan.

Sea folk have speech that is not quite their own,
For wind is on them and the salty sun,

For every seaman, every seaman's son
Knows sound of fretting water over stone.

Never a wind that comes from the East again,
But they must speak of it to mate or friend,
Never a ship comes home in windy rain
But they must tell it over without end.

Their salty speech is not their own at all,
But sound of water falling by a wall.

Harold Vinal

"SHIPPING NEWS”

Here is the record of their splendid days:
The curving prow, the tall and stately mast,
And all the width and wonder of their ways
Reduced to little printed words, at last:
The Helen Dover docks, the Mary Ann
Departs for Ceylon and the Eastern trade:
Arrived: The Jacque, with cargoes from Japan,
And Richard Kidd, a tramp, –

and Silver Maid.

The narrow print is wide enough for these:
But here: "Reported Missing"... the type fails,
The column breaks for white, disastrous seas,

The jagged spars thrust through, and flapping sails

Flagging farewells to sky and wind and shore,
Arrive at silent ports, and leave no more.

David Morton

HERVÉ RIEL

(May 31, 1692)

On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred

ninety-two,

Did the English fight the French,

France!

woe to

And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through

the blue,